django-rest-authemail 0.0.2

A RESTful API for user signup and authentication using email addresses

django-rest-authemail is a Django application that provides a RESTful interface for user signup and authentication. Email addresses are used for authentication, rather than usernames. Because the authentication user model is based on Django’s AbstractBaseUser and is itself abstract, the model can be extended without the need for additional database tables. Token authentication allows the API to be accessed from a variety of front ends, including Django, AngularJS clients, and iOS and Android mobile apps.

Features

• API endpoints for signup, email verification, login, logout, password reset, password reset verification, password change, and user detail.

• Perform password confirmation on the front end for a better user experience.

• Extensible abstract user model.

• Token authentication.

• User models in the admin interface include inlines for signup and password reset codes.

• Uses the Django REST Framework.

• An example project is included and contains example UI templates.

• Supports and tested under Python 2.7.6

Installation

django-rest-authemail is available on the Python Package Index (PyPI) at https://pypi.python.org/pypi/django-rest-authemail.

You can install django-rest-authemail using one of the following techniques.

• Use pip:

pip install django-rest-authemail

• Download the .tar.gz file from PyPI and install it yourself

• Download the source from Github and install it yourself

If you install it yourself, also install the Django, Django REST Framework, South, and requests.

Usage

1. In the settings.py file of your project, include rest_framework, rest_framework.authtoken, and authemail in INSTALLED_APPS. Set the authentication scheme for the Django REST Framework to TokenAuthentication.

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'rest_framework',
    'rest_framework.authtoken',
    'authemail',
    ...
)

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': (
        'rest_framework.authentication.TokenAuthentication',
    )
}

2. Create a Django application for your user data. For example,

python manage.py startapp accounts

3. In the models.py file of your application, extend EmailAbstractUser, add custom fields, and assign objects to EmailUserManager(). For example,

from django.db import models
from authemail.models import EmailUserManager, EmailAbstractUser

class MyUser(EmailAbstractUser):
    # Custom fields
    date_of_birth = models.DateField('Date of birth', null=True,
        blank=True)

    # Required
    objects = EmailUserManager()

4. In the settings.py file of your project, include your application in INSTALLED_APPS. Set AUTH_USER_MODEL to the class of your user model. For example,

AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'accounts.MyUser'

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'rest_framework',
    'rest_framework.authtoken',
    'authemail',
    'accounts',
    ...
)

5. In the admin.py file of your application, extend EmailUserAdmin to add your custom fields. For example,

from django.contrib import admin
from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model
from authemail.admin import EmailUserAdmin

class MyUserAdmin(EmailUserAdmin):
    fieldsets = (
        (None, {'fields': ('email', 'password')}),
        ('Personal Info', {'fields': ('first_name', 'last_name')}),
        ('Permissions', {'fields': ('is_active', 'is_staff',
                                       'is_superuser', 'is_verified',
                                       'groups', 'user_permissions')}),
        ('Important dates', {'fields': ('last_login', 'date_joined')}),
        ('Custom info', {'fields': ('date_of_birth',)}),
    )

admin.site.unregister(get_user_model())
admin.site.register(get_user_model(), MyUserAdmin)

6. Create the database tables with syncdb and South’s schemamigration and migrate. For example,

python manage.py syncdb

7. Make API calls from your front end code. For the endpoints requiring authentication (logout, password change, and user detail), include the auth token key in the HTTP header. For example,

Authorization: Token 9944b09199c62bcf9418ad846dd0e4bbdfc6ee4b

Here’s an example using curl,

curl -X GET 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/accounts/logout' \
     -H 'Authorization: Token 9944b09199c62bcf9418ad846dd0e4bbdfc6ee4b' \

API Endpoints

For the endpoints that follow, the base path is shown as /api/accounts. This path is for example purposes. It can be customized in your project’s urls.py file.

POST /api/accounts/signup

Call this endpoint to sign up a new user and send a verification email. Sample email templates are found in authemail/templates/authemail. To override the email templates, copy and modify the sample templates, or create your own, in your_app/templates/authemail.

Your front end should handle password confirmation, and if desired, require the visitor to input their first and last names.

Unverified users can sign up multiple times, but only the latest signup code will be active.

• Payload

  • email (required)

  • password (required)

  • first_name (optional)

  • last_name (optional)

• Possible responses

201 (Created)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "email": "[e-mail]"
    "first_name": "Amelia",
    "last_name": "Earhart",
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "email": [
        "This field is required."
    ],
    "password": [
        "This field is required."
    ]
}

{
    "email": [
        "Enter a valid email address."
    ]
}

{
    "detail": "User with this Email address already exists."
}

GET /api/accounts/signup/verify/?code=<code>

When the user clicks the link in the verification email, the front end should call this endpoint to verify the user.

• Parameters

  • code (required)

• Possible responses

200 (OK)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "success": "User verified."
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "detail": "Unable to verify user."
}

POST /api/accounts/login

Call this endpoint to log in a user. Use the authentication token in future calls to identify the user.

• Payload

  • email (required)

  • password (required)

• Possible responses

200 (OK)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "token": "91ec67d093ded89e0a752f35188802c261899013"
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "password": [
        "This field is required."
    ],
    "email": [
        "This field is required."
    ]
}

{
    "email": [
        "Enter a valid email address."
    ]
}

401 (Unauthorized)
{
    "detail": "Authentication credentials were not provided."
}

{
    "detail": "Unable to login with provided credentials."
}

{
    "detail": "User account not active."
}

GET /api/accounts/logout

Call this endpoint to log out an authenticated user.

• HTTP Header

Authorization: Token 9944b09199c62bcf9418ad846dd0e4bbdfc6ee4b

• Possible responses

200 (OK)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "success": "User logged out."
}

401 (Unauthorized)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "detail": "Authentication credentials were not provided."
}

{
    "detail": "Invalid token"
}

POST /api/accounts/password/reset

Call this endpoint to send an email to a user so they can reset their password. Similar to signup verification, the password reset email templates are found in authemail/templates/authemail. Override the default templates by placing your similarly-named templates in your_app/templates/authemail.

• Payload

  • email (required)

• Possible responses

201 (Created)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "email": "[e-mail]"
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "email": [
        "This field is required."
    ]
}

{
    "email": [
        "Enter a valid email address."
    ]
}

{
    "detail": "Password reset not allowed."
}

GET /api/accounts/password/reset/verify/?code=<code>

When the user clicks the link in the password reset email, call this endpoint to verify the password reset code.

• Parameters

  • code (required)

• Possible responses

200 (OK)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "success": "User verified."
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "password": [
        "This field is required."
    ]
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "detail": "Unable to verify user."
}

POST /api/accounts/password/reset/verified

Call this endpoint with the password reset code and the new password, to reset the user’s password. The front end should prompt the user for a confirmation password and give feedback if the passwords don’t match.

• Payload

  • code (required)

  • password (required)

• Possible responses

200 (OK)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "success": "Password reset."
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "password": [
        "This field is required."
    ]
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "detail": "Unable to verify user."
}

POST /api/accounts/password/change

Call this endpoint to change a user’s password.

• HTTP Header

Authorization: Token 9944b09199c62bcf9418ad846dd0e4bbdfc6ee4b

• Payload

  • password (required)

• Possible responses

200 (OK)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "success": "Password changed."
}

400 (Bad Request)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "password": [
        "This field is required."
    ]
}

401 (Unauthorized)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "detail": "Authentication credentials were not provided."
}

{
    "detail": "Invalid token"
}

GET /api/accounts/users/me

Call this endpoint after logging in and obtaining an authorization token to learn more about the user.

• HTTP Header

Authorization: Token 9944b09199c62bcf9418ad846dd0e4bbdfc6ee4b

• Possible responses

200 (OK)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "id": 1,
    "email": "[e-mail]",
    "first_name": "Amelia",
    "last_name": "Earhart",
}

401 (Unauthorized)
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "detail": "Authentication credentials were not provided."
}

{
    "detail": "Invalid token"
}

Wrapper

A wrapper is available to access the API with Python code. First create an instance of the AuthEmail class, then call methods to access the API. There is a one-to-one mapping between the endpoints and instance methods.

from authemail import wrapper

account = wrapper.AuthEmail()
response = account.signup(first_name=first_name, last_name=last_name,
    email=email, password=password)

if 'detail' in response:
    # Handle error condition
else:
    # Handle good response

See example_project/views.py for more sample usage.

Inspiration and Ideas

Inspiration and ideas for django-rest-authemail were derived from:

• django-rest-framework

• django-email-as-username

• django-registration

• django-rest-auth

• tmdbsimple